Minging duck weed again!

First of all, dear reader, you must know this. Old duck weed really stinks. Duck weed makes and grows itself from 'nutrients in still water' or as we know it, duck poo. And after it has accumulated in the canal to form a nice thick layer (thick enough to support any rubbish thrown there, a walking duck, a brick) it has gently composted and releases a thick, sulfurous, cess-pit reek when you disturb it.

Rubbish on a floating mass of rotten duckweed.

So this morning we were carving into a six inch cake of rotten duck weed at the tail of the disused side of Old Ford Lock on the Lee Navigation. 'We' being in this case a hurriedly assembled towpath task force lead by Sandile Mthiyane the Volunteer Team Leader for CRT in the East of London. As well as myself there were four other volunteers and Jack Newman the Volunteer Team Leader for CRT in the West of London (apparently the dividing line is the Islington tunnel.)

We split into two teams, one covering the foliage cut-back between the Old Ford Lock Footbridge and just below the Greenway Bridge, the other pulling rubbish and rank, rotten duck weed from the disused lock and putting it in the hopper there, and also clearing up the rubbish disposal site.

This was hard physical work, moving rubbish into a hopper involves a lot of heavy carrying and lifting, and we had to be particularly careful. But with work we dug down and even found some clear water under the rubbish and six-inch cake of minging weed.

A channel of 'clear' water begins to appear.

Jack clearing rubbish.

After lunch I switched teams to put a rake and broom to work on the footbridge, clearing away half-rottted leaves to make it less slippery. Then we dived under the sewer pipes and cleared away a lot more leaves and ivy from some overgrown pathways there. The result was better sight-lines through a somewhat less slippery towpath.

4 hours of heavy labour.